CONVERSATIONS IN CREATIVITY AUTUMN 2019 BRITISH TEXTILE BIENNIAL CUT FROM A DIFFERENT CLOTH The identity of Pennine Lancashire is crafted by its Politics feature prominently on other highlights from our relationship to its textiles heritage. talks programme. Leading fashion historian and broadcaster, Amber Butchart, leads a panel discussion exploring fashion The Fabrications programme of 2017 curated by Super and textiles as an expression of contemporary activism at Slow Way, offered an artistic response to this industrial Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery (30 Oct). legacy. For Super Slow Way, who’ve been developing artistic interventions across Pennine Lancashire since 2014, On the day that Britain could exit the European Community, Fabrications represented an opportunity to work with local we return to the museum for an extended roundtable with and global collaborators on an ambitious range of projects. Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT), to Even prior to the success of Fabrications it was key to Super share and discuss initial findings to the recent nationwide Slow Way’s vision to establish a recurring biennial and a industry consultation to help shape the future sustainable means of developing a social legacy for the future. development of fashion and textiles in the UK. Contributors include Lipi Begum (Research Fellow, London College of “I don’t think of heritage as history so much as what Fashion, UAL), and representatives from all aspects of the is in people’s DNA. The response to Fabrications was textiles ecosystem including leading industrialists, sector so immediate and enthusiastic… The canal has been a bodies and academics (31 Oct). really useful metaphor as well as a material resource, and so have textiles. There’s aesthetic qualities and Super Slow Way is one of two organisations in Lancashire possibilities in terms of evolution of modern methods of supported by Arts Council’s Creative People & Places fabrication, scientific possibilities and digital outputs.” programme. The other is LeftCoast who deliver across the Laurie Peake, Director Super Slow Way Fylde Coast. We profile LeftCoast’s latest project,Painting The Town. Developed out of an artist commission delivered The vision is realised in the firstBritish Textile Biennial by artist, Laura Shevaun Green, the project aims to revitalise (3 Oct – 3 Nov). Over the following pages you can gain an Blackpool and reinvigorate its community by Painting The insight into the work and careers of some of the individuals Town, one room, one home and one business at time… connected to the exhibits, events, performances, installations starting with Blackpool Pleasure Beach. and workshops, and whose work is woven into the social fabric of the area. By the end of the 19th century the area, stretching along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, produced 85% of the world’s One of those collaborators is Jamie Holman who is also our cotton goods. It brought workers to the region to fuel the guest editor for this publication. Jamie presents Transform mill industries, building a creative, industrious and diverse and escape the Dogs (Church St, Blackburn), a series of new population that shapes the area today. Possibly that’s why so works celebrating a history of radical gatherings where the many of the artists and makers featured in this publication working class youth resisted, rejected, and finally reclaimed COVER IMAGE: GROUND – THREAD BEARING WITNESS, ALICE KETTLE constantly strive to innovate through exploring new ways to the spaces that cotton made and then abandoned. In his tell stories and experiment with material. They are cut from extended piece, Politics of Collaboration (page 10), Jamie a different cloth. Whether it’s through collaboration with gives an insight into his process and the individuals he works international artists relating to textile production and related Credits: Alice Kettle with contributions from Pipka/Lesvos Solidarity; Ahmed Ali, Somaya with for his commission and practice as an artist. craft, when viewed through an artist’s creative lens there is Hossaini; Yakob & many other residents at Calais refugee camp working with Suzanne Partridge; the potential for the new and unexpected. Nahomie Bukasa, Sahira Khan and Ai Ling with Linda Leroy at the Helen Bamber Foundation; The festival showcases textile inspired work conceived locally Nisrin Albyrouty, Khouloud Alkurd, Heba Almnini. Heidi Ambruster, Marwa Ammar, Amal Ayoubi, as well as commissions by national and international artists “It’s what is in the DNA”. Stella Charman, Susan Colverson, Jenny Cuffw, Lama Hamami, Miriam Jones, Asmaa Kamar Aldin, including Alice Kettle’s Thread Bearing Witness (Gawthorpe Ruth le Mesurier, Vanessa Rolf, Samar Sobeih, Chaymae Yousfi and many children from English Hall), a series of large-scale embroideries that represents a Ed Matthews-Gentle FRSA Chat Winchester; Farhia Ahmed Ali, Nawad Hersi Duale, Amran Mohamud Ismail with Refugee Action moving reflection on cultural heritage, refugee displacement Creative Lancashire working with artists Jenny Eden and Richard Harris; Shahireh Sharif with Travelling Heritage and movement. Alice also features on our front cover, and in Group; Julie Firman, Victoria Hartley, Louise Jung, Susan Kamara, Saamiullah Khan. a conversation with artist and researcher at Gemma Potter Cotton, rayon and metallic thread, life jacket material on printed canvas. 8m x 3m, 2018 Padiham Town Hall (Oct 17). Courtesy the artist and Candida Stevens Gallery. Photo: Michael Pollard 3 BRITISH TEXTILE BIENNIAL IMAGES: T-SHIRT: CULT | CULTURE | SUBVERSION EXHIBIT, BANNER BY JAMIE HOLMAN, KATAB: QUILTING A FESTIVAL CELEBRATING THE STORIES, ANNA RAY: AIM INSTALLATION. POWER OF TEXTILES THROUGH ART, DESIGN & PERFORMANCE LAURIE PEAKE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR The politics of cloth will be explored by artists, designers Queen Street Mill in Burnley, made famous as a location for and makers in exhibitions, performances and events in the period films, provides the setting for Heirloom, a display of first British Textile Biennial this autumn. shirts embroidered by local men, telling personal stories of textiles and migration, alongside works by Daksha The inaugural Biennial programme highlights the nation’s Patel, Anna Ray and Raisa Kabir developed from their Art creation, innovation and expression in textiles against the in Manufacturing residencies in factories across the area. backdrop of the impressive infrastructure of the cotton The mill will also provide the backdrop for a film by Dhaka industry in Pennine Lancashire. With its epic mills, grandiose artist, Reetu Sattar, who has been working with the local civic architecture along the country’s longest waterway, Bangladeshi community. the Leeds & Liverpool canal, this landscape tells the story of textiles. This Biennial festival celebrates that story Showing in the magnificent barn at Gawthorpe Hall, while showcasing its contemporary expression with the Burnley, home of the famous textile collection, Alice Kettle’s community that has textiles in its DNA. Thread Bearing Witness is a major series of large-scale embroideries that represents a moving reflection on cultural The British Textile Biennial is sited in some of the heritage, refugee displacement and movement. magnificent and often hidden gems of that heritage including Blackburn Cotton Exchange, Brierfield Mill in Pendle, Mr. Artist Claire Wellesley Smith has been working for two Gatty’s Experiment Shed in Accrington and the outstanding years with local residents exploring Frederick Gatty’s textile collection at Gawthorpe Hall in Burnley, all following historic experimental dye house at Elmfield Hall, Accrington the great waterway that originally supported it, the Leeds and the innovations in dye techniques he pioneered, such & Liverpool Canal. as the Khaki dyes used in manufacturing uniforms for the troops during WW1. In the bicentenary year of Gatty’s birth, We have invited artists, designers and makers to look at this new work reimagines the abandoned dye house as it how cloth, that most fundamental of human fabrications, is might have been when he was alive. used as a vehicle for cultural expression and identity while In the crypt of Blackburn Cathedral, T-Shirt: Cult | Culture Finally, BTB artist-in-residence, Jamie Holman’s new throwing a spotlight on the nation’s creation, innovation and | Subversion charts the history, culture and subversion of work gives us a far-reaching insight into the cultural expression in textiles against the backdrop of the landscape the most affordable and popular item of clothing on the products of Blackburn’s working classes starting with tells that story. planet which, since its earliest incarnation at the start workers’ banners through to the creative outpouring in of the 20th century, has served as a means to broadcast the warehouse raves of the 1980s when the grandchildren Banners have long been used as vehicles for personal social, musical and political passions. of cotton mill workers transformed former workplaces and collective expression, from traditional 19th century into spaces of joy and liberation. processional banners to contemporary D.I.Y. messages of Across the way, in Blackburn’s magnificent Cotton protest. Banner Culture is a mass staging of these iconic Exchange, the adidas SPEZIAL exhibition celebrates The British Textile Biennial strikes a balance between cloths in the epic spaces of Northlight, the former Brierfield the training shoe and its legacy as an important marker high art, community